Society’s idea of beauty has been one of the most dangerous pressures of teens and young adults whose appearances don’t seem to “fit into” the categories of popular beauty belief. People take all sorts of extreme and absurd risks to try to reach what they believe will make them beautiful in the eyes of the people surrounding them. They develop bad habits of doing things, such as using tanning beds regularly. They often disregard the negative effects of such behaviors and live in the moment of enjoying the way their skin looks now, but are sometimes unaware that this “beauty” practice leads to wrinkles earlier in their lives, burns their skin, and often leaves it extremely dry. Unfortunately, these are risks that also may most certainly lead to these individuals deaths.
One popular beauty trend is the belief that tanned skin looks healthy and glows. Both naturally pale male and females have practiced the dangerous process of achieving this appearance of the skin. They lie out in the sun for hours and often even use products to help the ultraviolet rays have a stronger impact on their skin tone. What they have not considered is the fact that the sun can do serious damage to one’s skin, having it age earlier than normal and possibly lead to the most deadly skin cancer, known as melanoma. Signs of cancer may not show up for many years and that is why these young participants assume they are invincible. It has also been stated that it is quite ironic that many tan for cosmetic reasons, yet they are actually damaging the appearance of their skin and the health of it which will make their skin look really ugly in the future. People are willing to put themselves through almost anything for beauty, but are they willing to drop these certain habits to have that beautiful skin they want in their future as well?
As much as we would like to hope people will change, a majority have given the impression that they care more about how they look in the present time and not so much later. Even after being educated about the risks and damage that it can have on their body, most tend to not care, sadly until it is too late. Tanning salons and advertisements continue to grow by the year and individuals are assuming they will not face side effects for participating in this popular beauty trend. It is predicted that if tanning continues, future generations will develop skin cancer and other harmful consequences for their actions of continuously exposing their skin to large amounts of ultraviolet rays.
Better and safer alternative? Sunless tanning! It’s worth it in the long run.
